Lawmakers finally vote down pay raises

After uncertainty down to the very end, state lawmakers have voted to skip a pay raise this year and change how they get raises in the future.

State Capitol Bureau

After uncertainty down to the very end, state lawmakers have voted to skip a pay raise this year and change how they get raises in the future.

The House voted 87-0 on Friday to override Gov. Pat Quinn's veto on Senate Bill 2090, which reversed how pay raises are handed out to lawmakers and other top state officials. The Senate already voted to reject Quinn's change, so now it becomes law.

The measure, approved easily in the spring, called for reversing the pay raise system so lawmakers have to vote to get a raise, rather than getting one unless they vote it down. It also had them skip a pay raise this year and an automatic cost-of-living increase.

Quinn changed the measure this summer to have lawmakers no longer get automatic COLA increases in future years also. But lawmakers didn't want to go that route.

They risked seeing the whole bill and Quinn's change die if the House didn't vote on the matter today. But the House voted after Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, said he didn't want to leave town and see lawmakers get a pay raise in the end.

"We can't do this. The process to me is extremely important," Black said. "As a body, we don't deserve a raise."

Rep. Ken Dunkin, D-Chicago, complained that the vote made lawmakers look like bad guys for wanting an increase for working hard for their constituents. He suggested legislators who didn't want the increase could give up their entire salary if they felt so strongly.